Thinking rightly about trials

     Although we have labeled the entire book of James as intended to correct wrong thinking, we were able to make quite a list Tuesday of RIGHT thinking, especially about trials. When he begins the book telling us to consider it joy when we encounter trials, you know there will be considerable restructuring of the way we think involved.
     First, James clearly tells us that the results of trusting God through trials are huge: patience, endurance, steadfastness, maturity, completeness. He even says at the end we will lack nothing. In a nutshell, we will be like Christ, the firstfruit of this new kind of person that we call a Christian. "Let endurance do its work," the NASB says. Cooperate with what God is trying to create in you. Anything you experience, "good times" or "bad times" can be used by God to make you more like Christ, and that is James main point in these opening verses.
     But we found other right thinking is the section. We found that we should be single-minded, not double. Focused. This will be explained more fully later, but thinking rightly includes wanting whatever God wants for us. Double-minded would be thinking about what we want and what God wants and trying to get them both. Don't think you'll get what God wants that way, verse 7 says.
    Another way to think rightly is to consider whatever circumstance we are in temporary, because they are, in fact, temporary. Scripture loves to use the illustration of flowers to picture the brevity of whatever is going on in our lives. They are the perfect illustration. The daffodils I've been waiting and waiting for have been so beautiful for a few days, and they are already nearly done. The tulips are beginning; if the thunderstorms don't get them (or the deer!) then the warmer temperatures will. "This too shall pass" turns out to be a spiritual reality we can count on.
    We will have a lot more correction to our thinking as we make our way through the book of James, These are the main ideas we drew out of his introduction in 1:1-18. But these three big ideas can be life changing on their own. Let's keep them in mind.